2023-10-03 04:05:00
Uruguayan senator Gustavo Penads, a prominent figure in the government of Luis Alberto Lacalle, will be formally accused in the investigation opened against him for crimes of a sexual nature, for which his parliamentary privileges were suspended in June, judicial sources reported this Monday (2). .
Alicia Ghione, 6th Shift Sexual Crimes prosecutor, will request the formalization of the investigation against Penads at a hearing scheduled for October 10, Public Ministry spokesperson Javier Benech informed journalists.
He highlighted that only then will the criminal accusation and any additional request for precautionary measures be revealed for the 57-year-old legislator, whose cell phone was confiscated by the courts in August and banned from leaving the country for 180 days.
According to local media, which cite sources close to the case, Penads will be accused of sexual exploitation of teenagers and his preventive arrest will be requested.
Penalties investigated for the crime of retribution or promising retribution to minors for the performance of sexual or erotic acts, provided for in law 17,815 of 2004, which carries a sentence of two to 12 years in prison.
Benech said that in this case, the indictment of Sebastian Mauvezin, a former teacher at the Liceu Militar, who allegedly facilitated Penads’ alleged sexual encounters with minors, will also be requested.
Both Penads and Mauvezin denied the accusations.
Uruguay’s Attorney General, Juan Gmez, ordered an investigation into Penads at the end of March, after Romina Celeste Papasso, a trans woman militant of the National Party, publicly accused him of pedophilia. To this were added nine other complaints, all from men.
According to details revealed during the Senate session in which Penads was stripped of his parliamentary immunity, the majority of those who testified against him “were young” at the time of the alleged sexual abuse and exploitation, the majority being “13 and 14 years old”, and the events reported occurred over several years, including a 2020 testimony.
“In an old case, the victim was just a child on a football team that Penads organized when he was still a teenager,” says the document. Penads resigned in June from the National Party, the government party, where he had a long career since joining the military in the 1980s.
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